Here’s my current setup for my living room. Right now I still have a Standard Definition DVR from Dish Network since the TV is still pretty new.

• Panasonic TH-50PX80U 50″ Plasma 720p
• Panasonic SC-PT960 Home Theater In a Box
• Xbox
• PS2

Here is what I have planned for the not to distant future

•  HTPC - it’s going to start life as a Media PC probably
• One of the advanced Gaming consoles, still not sure what I want/can afford.
• An upgrade to HD programming with Dish.

I’ve also have some plans for some home automation etc… we’ll see…

Netflix Streaming Without a HTPC
If you don’t have a HTPC and you don’t feel like connecting a laptop to your TV, then Netflix has a new option for you. The Netflix Player is a $99 compact box which allows streaming of Netflix movies and TV shows.  Too bad other web streaming services such as Joost, Hulu, and YouTube are not supported. 

Home Automated Door Locks
It’s always good to see new home automation product announcements, but this one caught our eye. Schlage introduced Z-Wave door locks which will let people remotely lock and unlock a door. Could be useful if someone forgot a key or to let someone in if no one is home. It’s important to not that Z-Wave does not encrypt their signals so this not a real good way to keep your house secure.

A couple of months ago, my xv6700 PDA phone crashed for the final time. Not that I’m complaining because it gave me a great excuse to buy a new phone. I went with Samsung’s i760, and it’s been a significant improvement. The simple feature of having number buttons on the front of the phone is a something I’ve missed since I bought the xv6700 more than 2 years ago. To dial a phone number on the xv6700, I would have to use the touch screen which my fingers were too big for, or use the slideout QWERTY keyboard which was a pain. As the picture shows below, the i760 has number buttons on the front of the phone so now entering phone numbers is as easy as entering numbers on a regular phone. 

The xv6700 was one of the first PDA phones Verizon offered with Wi-Fi capabilities. I refused to pay the $50/month for a data package so Wi-Fi was important. The xv6700 wasn’t too bad of a phone as it was able to do all the PDA phone functions I could ask for. Where the i760 excels is in reliability. I had the i760 for 2 months now and it has crashed on me once. The xv6700 with Windows Mobile 5 would crash weekly.  Windows Mobile 6 on the i760 seems to be more stable, at least so far. 

The i760 seems to be faster and more responsive than the xv6700. The i760 also has a significantly louder speaker, is thinner, and has built-in Microsoft Voice command features. It’s pretty cool speaking out “What are my appointments” and hearing a response. I didn’t have to teach the phone my voice which is a big time saver. 

In the end, the i760 may delay my future Android phone purchase. Arguably, the i760 is one of the best phones out there today.

Researching home automation reminded me of how it was when I started researching HDTVs a few years ago. HDTVs have different technologies such as DLP, LCD, Plasma and SXRD just like home automation has different protocols such as Z-Wave, Zigbee, X10, UPB and Insteon. They all have their pluses and minuses so we created a home automation section at HomeTheaterNetwork.com to help out. It could even help out some experts because I heard a lot of false information at the last EHX conference.

Hello everyone,

I have spent the past 3 hours looking over this site, and while informative I also find it overwhelming.  I am looking for either sage advice or just a quick and dirty for building a simple HTPC.  I have been building my own PC’s for years, but building an HTPC is adding a wrinkle I just can’t get over.  Let me start this way……

Components I have picked out:

Silverstone ML02MXR Case, Intel Core2 Duo E4600 2.4Ghz, Asus P5E-VM Moboard, 1TB Seagate HD, 2GB ram(manufacturer yet to be named, I believe G.Skill) Lite-On DH-4015-11 (blu-ray) and Fusion HDTV RTGold Tuner.  I was also looking at Creative Labs Gigaworks speakers.

What I can’t wrap my head around is connecting my Wii and PS2 to everything.  I will be getting a PS3 later this year, and replacing my Samsung 720p projection TV with a Visio (I can’t remember the model, but it has 3 HDMI inputs).  I also have a Logitech Harmony One on the way.

A buddy of mine is convinced this is all I need.  I feel I am missing something, and looking at the diagram it appears I am missing quite a bit, but I don’t know if I need an HDMI switcher, or do I really need a reciever?  I would like to get into this for less then 2k.  Is that possible?

Thanks in advance and I appreciate your time.

There is a lot of HTPCs for windows, but what if you have MAC os system?

what would be the best way to set up a Mac Mini as a HTPC? How do I integrate an iphone or ipodtouch as a remote to manage HTN in the home.

Thanks,

J.C.